Garden Gazebo Gallivant Page 4

  “I thought I heard commotion out here,” Renmar came around through the dining room. Following close behind was Hazel Cobb. “Well who do we have here?”

  “Renmar Colquett, this is my mother, Justin, and my brother, Micah.”

  “Hi,” my mother said.

  “Mom, Renmar is Bay’s mother. And this is Hazel Cobb, Bay’s cousin on his father’s side.”

  I thought it might be a little racist to point that out seeing Hazel was black, and it let people know that Renmar had married a black man. But that’s how they always introduced Hazel, and no one seemed to mind. Plus, everyone could see that Bay was black and his mother wasn’t.

  “Nice to meet you,” my mother said. “Nice to meet everyone.”

  “I’m a hugger,” Hazel Cobb said and grabbed my mother, locking her in a tight squeeze.

  “I was just fixing a little brunch for ya’ll,” Renmar said. “I hope ya’ll are hungry.”

  “Yes ma’am,” my rude brother, Micah said. He hadn’t opened his mouth until that point. “I’m starving.” He took in a whiff, and a smile spread across his face. “And it smells really good in here.”

  “You’re always hungry,” my mother said.

  My brother was tall and skinny as a rail, even though he always had his nose in the refrigerator or his car in a drive-thru. He wore his hair cut low, and if he wasn’t at work at the law firm my uncle owned, he was in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He probably had loads of money because he billed at $275 an hour for his sixty-hour week as an attorney and still lived with my parents, catching a ride to work with our uncle.

  “Oh he’s fine,” Hazel Cobb said and waved her hand. “C’mere and give me a hug. Any family of Logan’s is family to us, too.”

  “I can’t take being in that big ole house anymore!” A very short, very loud woman came barreling through the door, tripping over her luggage as she pulled it behind her. Then she let out a wail that rivaled the doggie refrain I’d heard this morning. “Kimmie’s dead!” she shrieked. “And it’s all my fault!”

  Chapter Eight

  Well that’s a first, I thought. The murderer announcing it without anyone asking.

  Renmar rushed to her. “Frankie!” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “No!” she cried out. “I’m not.” She dabbed at her eyes, and sniffed. “Everything in that house reminds me of Kimmie and I just can’t stay there any longer.”

  “Where’s Nash?” Renmar asked.

  “Down at the police station,” she said. “He’s camped out down there saying he’s going to help the sheriff.” She shook her head. “What does he think, this is the Old West? That they’re just going to ride out at dawn and go and get their man?”

  “Is it alright?” Brie asked.

  “That man is healthy as a horse, strong as an ox, and frisky as a ferret. He’ll be fine.”

  “It is his daughter,” Renmar said, giving her a suspicious look.

  Everyone stared at Frankie, and then Frankie let her eyes go to each one of ours before she let out another howl. “Kimmie!” she screamed and her knees buckled, I just knew she was going down.

  Hazel Cobb grabbed her. “Frankie!” she said.

  Renmar moved in and started fanning her with her hand. “Micah!” she directed. “Get a chair!” She pointed to the dining room.

  “Oh my,” my mother said and slid up next to me. “Who is that?” she whispered.

  I hunched my shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  Miss Vivee took my mother’s hand and led her over to the beige tufted bench by the front door. It was me and Miss Vivee’s usual hangout.

  She sat, then pulled my mother down next to her. “That’s Kimmie’s mother,” Miss Vivee said and leaned in closer. “Her stepmother.”

  “Well why does she think she’s responsible?” my mother asked. “Doesn’t she know she was stung by a hornet?”

  “She doesn’t know much of anything,” Miss Vivee said. “At least that’s what she wants people to think.”

  “What makes you think that you’re responsible for Kimmie, Frankie?” I heard Renmar ask after they’d gotten her stable. She had instructed Hazel Cobb to get a cold towel and Micah a glass of water out of the kitchen. She was standing next to Frankie’s chair holding her hand.

  “Because I shouldn’t have let her go out running this morning. She likes to run around that square like it’s a track.” Frankie shook her head as if she didn’t understand the purpose of that. “She’d just gotten back into town, you know,” she continued. “And had jet lag something fierce. She’d been on one of her trips. This time to China, and her last stop was India. She even had a small fever. No telling where she got that from. I made her put on that jogging suit,” Frankie said all in one breath.

  Micah had made it back with the water, spilling it as he came rushing back. Renmar held it while Frankie took time out from talking to take a sip. “I made her zip it up.” Frankie swallowed the small amount of water with much to much effort, and continued talking. Looking at Renmar, tears spilling down her face, she said, “I just wanted her to keep warm.”

  “Well of course you did, Sweetie.”

  “She must have been sweating something awful,” Miss Vivee whispered to me.

  “Well, you can’t hold yourself responsible because of that.” Hazel Cobb said to Frankie as she returned with the cold compress. “She didn’t die from being overheated.”

  “I should have been a better mother,” Frankie said and hiccupped. “Insisted that she not go out.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” Renmar said holding the compress up to Frankie’s head.

  “You’re probably right,” Frankie said taking the rag from Renmar and dabbing her eyes with it. “But I just feel so awful.”

  “Well of course you do,” Renmar said.

  As she was recuperating, Miss Vivee gave us the lowdown on Frankie.

  Her full name was Francesca Hunt, wife of Nash Hunt, who was Kimmie’s father. She’d married Nash when Kimmie was eight. He’d bought Stallings Inn, a bed and breakfast a little larger than the Maypop, but not as old for the family to run. It was the only other place in Yasamee for travelers.

  Miss Vivee said that everyone in town had gotten an earful from Frankie when she first arrived of how hard it was to be a stepmother and run a bed and breakfast in “little ole, not even on the map, Yasamee.” But she said that Frankie soon mellowed out, and her complaints became few and far in-between. Still, sometimes at the beauty parlor, or in Hadley’s drug store, Miss Vivee said, Frankie had been heard saying, “Even with the hard life,” she’d been dealt, she was “an expert at putting on a brave face and carrying on. Thank God for Nash’s money,” she’d say, otherwise she told everyone she didn’t know how she would’ve been able to “bear it.”

  I perused Frankie. That brave face, although now messy and tear stained, was made up in thick mascara, a touch of eye shadow and beet red lipstick. Just by looking at her, I could tell she was more sophisticated than most Yasamee-nites.

  Frankie wore her nails long, and the same color as her lips. Her hair was a beautiful silver gray, and she wore it straight. Cut in angles around her jaw line, parted on the side, her feathered bangs fell often into her face.

  Then I looked at Miss Vivee and wondered how she’d know so much about Frankie when she had spent the twenty years prior to me coming inside the house.

  Miss Vivee probably just made that all up.

  I came back from my reverie just as Renmar took a step back from Frankie, shaking her head.

  “Frankie,” Renmar said. “I know you’re in a tizzy right now, but the house is full because of the wedding and everything. I really don’t have a room available for you to stay.”

  “Let your guests go over to Stallings Inn,” Frankie said, her sobs growing stronger. “We’ll take all your overflow.”

  “I really don’t have overflow,” Renmar said. “It’s just we’re all booked up.”

  “Well, unbook it!” Frankie
squealed shaking her head like anyone would know that was the logical thing to do.

  “If you’re here,” Renmar said, trying to be patient. “Who’ll take care of the guests over there?”

  “I don’t know!” Her sobs reaching a crescendo. “All I know is that I can’t.”

  “Frankie you have to be realistic,” Renmar seem to plead with her.

  “They can sleep there, at Stallings Inn, and come over here and eat,” she said waving her hand in the air.

  “Frankie -”

  Frankie popped up from her seat. “They can stay at my inn for free,” she said. She swiped the rag across her face, smearing all that was left of her make-up, and then blew her nose into the compress. Holding Renmar’s hand open, palm up, with one of hers, she slammed the rag down into it. She hurled her purse down on the registration counter and started digging down in it.

  “Here, take the keys,” Frankie said and held them out to Renmar. And when Renmar didn’t reach for them she flung them across the counter. “They can just let themselves in. I’ll take the room off the kitchen.” She gathered up her stuff. “You know, the old servant quarters. I know you still keep a bed back there.” She sniffed, wiped her nose with her hand and picked up the handle or her roller luggage.

  “I use that for storage.” Renmar seemed flabbergasted and at a loss for words. “Really, Frankie,” was all she could seem to say.

  “However it looks is fine with me,” Frankie said. “I don’t care. Storage room or not.”

  “Renmar,” Brie said. She’d been standing off in a corner and hadn’t said a word the whole time. She did that sometimes, she could be totally uninvolved and uninterested even with the house falling down around her. “Just let her stay. She just lost her child.”

  Renmar looked at Frankie, over to us and back at Brie. She shook her head, closed her eyes, and let her arms fall down. “Alright. She can stay.” She looked at Frankie. “You can stay.”

  “Good,” Frankie said. She took another sniff and tilted her head to the side, she suddenly seemed calm. “What is that heavenly smell?” she asked and headed off to the kitchen.

  Chapter Nine

  I always felt like I needed to best my mother. Once I had decided to become an archaeologist, she was the one to beat. Now it seemed as if I were competing against her sleuthing. I chuckled to myself.

  How in the world did she know that Kimmie Hunt was bitten by an Asian Hornet?

  There was so much still to learn from her. How could I think I could be better than her?

  One thing my mother never did was jump to conclusion, and that’s one trait I definitely could use.

  After Francesca Hunt came over thinking that she’d killed Kimmie because she had made her put on that jogging suit, I started thinking. Why in the world did I jump to the conclusion that Kimmie had been murdered?

  Kimmie had been stung by a hornet. An Asian hornet per my mother and Miss Vivee, and she’d just come from Asia. (Although I knew that didn’t necessarily mean we didn’t have the hornets here. We had Brazil nuts, and French fries.)

  Sitting Indian style in the middle of my bed, after eating and taking a much needed shower, I decided I needed to learn more. I pulled out my laptop to Google the little bugger.

  “Hey, what’chya doing?”

  I looked up and saw my big brother standing in the doorway.

  “Trying to figure out how Mommy knew what killed that girl.”

  “Your Miss Vivee knew too, aren’t you curious how she figured it out?”

  “No,” I said. “She and Mac have a knack for that.”

  “Knack for what?” He plopped down on the bed. “They know about insect bites?”

  “They know about everything when it comes to suspicious causes of death. At least with all the murders we’ve come across.”

  “And how many is that?” he asked.

  “This makes number seven. But I was just thinking that maybe Kimmie Hunt wasn’t killed”

  “Seven?” He let out a whistle. “Girl, they don’t keep that many bodies in a morgue at one time.”

  I laughed. “I believe it.”

  “So, what you find out?” he asked and pointed to my laptop.

  “I was just getting started.” I clicked on the one of the links and read out loud. “The hornet is attracted by human sweat,” read the first line of the link I pulled up under my search of “death by hornet.” “And disturbed by human activity (particularly running), the hornets vigorously defend their territory, chasing people up to 600 feet and stinging them multiple times with their very toxic venom.” I looked at Micah. “That was from the story on how forty-two people in China had died from hornet stings.”

  “Wow,” Micah said. “That’s pretty scary. And pretty much what that lady said about what happened with that dead girl.”

  “Kimmie,” I said. “Her name was Kimmie. And what lady?”

  “Her mother, remember she said ‘Kimmie’ was out running, probably sweating up a storm.”

  “Oh yeah. I remember.”

  “No jogging for me while I’m here.”

  I laughed. “So, you scared another one might be out there with your name on it?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t mind admitting when I’m afraid of something. Are those things all over Georgia?”

  “I was just looking that up.” I went back to reading the article I’d pulled up on my computer. “I don’t think they are here,” I said and pointed at my monitor. “This story just says hornet. I’m guessing since the people who wrote the article were in Asia, they wouldn’t call it an Asian hornet.”

  “And you’re guessing then that the hornets are only in Asia?”

  “Yep. That’s my first guess.” I said and looked back down at the screen. I scrolled half the page. “Here it is,” I said. “These giant hornets can be found in the Primorsky Krai region of Russia, Korea, China, Taiwan, Indochina (region which consists of the countries Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam), Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka. But it says that they are most common in rural areas of Japan.” I lifted my head. “Doesn’t say anything about Georgia. You feel safe now?”

  “Funny.”

  I shut the top to my laptop. “Have you guys heard from Courtney?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Right before we left,” he said and smiled. “She called Mom and Dad to say she sends her love.”

  “She likes what she’s doing, huh?”

  Courtney was the oldest of us children. There were three years between her and Micah, only two between him and I. Following in the footsteps of one of my mother’s brother and a sister, Courtney was a teacher, now living in Tanzania working with Teachers Without Borders.

  “Yeah,” he said and nodded. “But you know she would’ve come for your engagement and everything if she could have.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I figured it’s all good,” he said. “You and Courtney leaving the nest, living somewhere else.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because, our parents are getting old now, and I’ll be the one to take care of them. That means they’ll leave me everything.”

  “Oh brother,” I said. “Is that what you think about, Mommy and Daddy dying off?”

  “And me getting all their stuff? Sometimes.”

  “I can’t wait until Dad gets here so I can tell him what his son thinks of him.”

  He started laughing. “You better worry about what they think of you.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked. “Did they say something about me?” I would never want to disappoint my parents.

  “No,” he shook his head. “I haven’t heard them say anything, yet.”

  “So what do you think about all of this?”

  I didn’t want him to think bad of my either.

  “All of what?” he asked.

  “My life here. The Maypop. Miss Vivee,” I said.

  “Your amateur sleuthing?” Micah asked.

  “Yeah. All of it. Wha
t’ya think?”

  “I think you’re going a little stir crazy down here. Running around with old people chasing murderers. And beeping at crime scenes.”

  “That was the first time I ever did that,” I said.

  “What was that all about?”

  “Nothing,” I said. I’d rather not tell him if he was already thinking I was a bit looney. “Go ahead. Tell me what you think.”

  “I don’t think that your parents are too happy about it.”

  “You just said that they hadn’t said anything.”

  “They haven’t. But they’re probably thinking it. It’s not what they planned for you, you know? It’s not even what you planned for you.”

  “Yeah. I know all of that,” I said and sighed. “And don’t tell them all about my Sherlock Holmes antics, either, okay?”

  “Whatever.” He gave me a disapproving look. “How do you even make money?” he asked. “How do you live?”

  “I was never going to make a lot of money in my chosen profession, anyway.”

  “That’s true. Not by going on digs and stuff. But you could teach, or become the curator of a museum like Mom did.”

  “I don’t want to do those things. I like excavating.”

  “Well, you’re not even doing that,” he said raising an eyebrow.

  I let out a long sigh.

  “And that Miss Vivee is something else,” he said. “How old is she, anyway?”

  “Who knows,” I said and laughed. “Renmar told me it’s impolite to ask a woman’s age, and Miss Vivee swears she’s over a hundred.”

  “Is she?”

  “I don’t know. I doubt it. I think she’s in her nineties. Maybe late nineties, but not a hundred.”

  “She sure does get around well,” Micah said. “Even for ninety-something. And she’s ‘spry’ as Grammy would say.”

  “I know, right? And wait until you meet Mac. Except for his limp, he’s just as ‘young’ as Miss Vivee.”

  “I hope I grow old that well,” Micah said.

  “Me too.”

  Micah sat quiet for a moment, as if he was contemplating something. “So. I know Dad’s coming, and you are his ‘little girl’ and all, and he’ll give you whatever you want, but I can help you if you need me to,” he said.